EU to put Thailand 1 step away from fish ban

[Ricardo]

Does the EU count as seafood, all those Thai frozen-prawns, which are farmed here ?

[Old Man River]

Thailands fishing practices have decimated the fish stocks right around the country, you only have to go look at what they bring into port and the size of the mesh they use. Thais simply take everything, they do not use size limits so they strip the whole area of sea life including the future breeders then complain when they are not able to make a living due to their greed. Even watching the locals take every tiny fish they catch from jetties is shameful, they fill buckets with 2" babies, nothing is thrown back to grow and breed. I have not fished here for over 12 months as it simply isnt worth it, we go to what would be a great fishing area in Australia and do not even get a follow up because all the fish have been removed by using such fine mesh and also due to the water being so badly polluted. I rarely eat seafood here as it tastes do bad, you can taste all the pollution from the water it lived in, it is the worst seafood I have ever tasted, you only have to look at the colour of the gills on the fish in the markets to see how bad it is plus you can smell it in the flesh.

Problem is no one cares, the fact they are removing all the undersize future breeding stock, fishing in marine parks/protested areas does not come into it, all that matters to them is how much money they can make. Until this changes nothing will improve, no one wants to have to police the marine laws same as the road laws, easier to just complain than actually do something physical.

Besides Thailand, what other countries are fishing this way? Also, it seems like this isn't a new way for Thai's to fish, so why are the EU only now bringing this up? Was it communicated. to YL when she was PM (is it political?).

[Shiver]

Maybe rather than exporting, they could turn to importing fish, give them each a tourist visa, and the TAT can have whatever numbers look best.

Yeah I know it's a stupid idea, but I'm trying not to stand out.

[MZurf]

IMHO the reason is:

"oh, the Thai Baht is strong, the fish we are buying from Thailand is getting expensive, lets ban it to have the prices down. we can always blame the policies on illegal and unregulated fishing."

If the price of Thai seafood is too high for the consumers in the EU (or any other) area they will just stop buying it. No skin off the back of the governments of the importing countries, hence no need for a ban. One would think that was bl@@dy obvious...

[26vinny]

http://www.philau.edu/collegestudies/Documents/Elizabeth%20Jones.pdf

well said that document put into context, last night BBC 1 documentary on Cambodia the Mekong river local people saying the fish stocks are so low because of the massive boats fishing it commercially, all they have left are tiny fish and without them they would have to move and grow off the land.